Thoughts from a Protagonist

When writing a story, your protagonist must meet people along the way. Sometimes they meet people who become great supporting characters, and others they meet only exist for a few paragraphs. Some of these may be friends. Some may be love interests. Your character may invest themselves wholeheartedly in those few paragraphs. They might fall in love. They might think it will last many chapters. They may be determined to force it to last many chapters. But that's not your plan. As the writer, your plan may be to rip this away from the protag, to bring them pain and heartache and numbness. Sometimes when your character loses people, they will be sad. Sometimes they will cry. They will think they are getting better, and then one night they will read a blog post and realize they aren't. Or something, Maybe they really will be, but in the moment you are not writing much hope into their story, Obviously they will go on, as you don't write cowardly protagonists. Despite this, they might not know what to do tho, or how to think. They might just smile at work and speak in a telephone voice and put on a brave face and soldier on. They might never sleep or they might sleep to much or at the wrong hours.They might lose themselves in the lives of other characters they watch or read or listen to. They might not know how to feel.
When a character reaches such a point, it is up to the writer to save them. Maybe the character knows the writer will save them and anxiously awaits that day, but doesn't know how to stop hiding, how to listen to the writer. Maybe you've taken a hiatus from writing until your protag can get their crap together. Maybe you're just waiting for them to remember they aren't the ones writing the story.




I should be sleeping, but I'm not. I was catching up on some blog posts by my dear friends when I came across one from the middle of January. It was a post by Margaret, titled "Why I Recommend Guitar". Congratulations, Mag. I cried. Anyway, I need to sleep as I'm working a 9 hour shift tomorrow. Good night all.